How to make vocational training ‘cool’: enhancing the reach.
Creating holistic education versus technical experts.
Making vocational training relevant and accountable: Ensuring vocational training evolves to meet the needs of the workplace. Role of industry; incentives for performance; transparency; standard setting and monitoring; better governance.
How do we benefit from international collaborations?
The need to design a system that leverages education technologies to deliver innovative solutions and create authentic learning environments.
Speakers
Ananya S Guha, Joint Director, Indira Gandhi National Open University Institute For Vocational Education And Training, India
VET will declass the myth of degrees and can be instrumental in making a plea for education, shorn of degree bias, for those people who are empowered with special skills. Hence such people may not fit into a core academic syllabus per se , but have talents( see, artisanship) which should be recognised not only for employability, but also as a creative impulse. The Indira Gandhi National Open University is also working on the notion of prior learning, concept of which is embedded here.
I am attaching the document that I sent last week with some of the ideas/thoughts that typically arise from my discussions with students, educators and industry. I have organized these around the major "threads" for this Stream.
Dr Law Song Seng, Senior Advisor, ITE Education Services Private Limited (ITEES), Singapore
Focus: Making vocational training relevant, responsive, accountable and holistic
In Plenary Session 4, Dr Law Song Seng shared the Singapore Story in building a system of vocational and technical education (VTE) for who are less academically-inclined.More “experiential learners” than “academic achievers”, these students respond to and blossom more easily in a practical and skills-based “hands-on” learning environment.
What we have seen is a breakthrough in vocational training.With its unique brand of a “hands-on, minds-on and hearts-on” holistic education, the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) in Singapore is well-recognised for developing highly employable graduates who are ready for the global economy.The underlying significance of the transformation is that the public image of ITE has changed!
For its innovations and achievements in transforming VTE in Singapore, ITE was the winner of the Global IBM-Harvard Innovations Award in Transforming Government in 2007.In this session, you will be invited to view a video which was especially commissioned as part of ITE’s commitment to share with others in the international community.The people featured in this 14-minute video include a former Minister of Education, Dr Law and a few ITE staff and students sharing Singapore’s success story.Entitled “Experiential Learners Change a Nation” and was shown on the Public Broadcasting Station (PBS) in the United
States, it tells a compelling story of Singapore’s transformation in vocational and technical education.
Table of Contents
Discussions
How to make vocational training ‘cool’: enhancing the reach.
Creating holistic education versus technical experts.
Making vocational training relevant and accountable: Ensuring vocational training evolves to meet the needs of the workplace. Role of industry; incentives for performance; transparency; standard setting and monitoring; better governance.
How do we benefit from international collaborations?
The need to design a system that leverages education technologies to deliver innovative solutions and create authentic learning environments.
Speakers
Ananya S Guha, Joint Director, Indira Gandhi National Open University Institute For Vocational Education And Training, IndiaVET will declass the myth of degrees and can be instrumental in making a plea for education, shorn of degree bias, for those people who are empowered with special skills. Hence such people may not fit into a core academic syllabus per se , but have talents( see, artisanship) which should be recognised not only for employability, but also as a creative impulse. The Indira Gandhi National Open University is also working on the notion of prior learning, concept of which is embedded here.
James Knight, President and CEO of the Association of Canadian Community Colleges (ACCC)
Nalin Jena, Project Leader, World Bank
Stream contributor
Ann Riley, Education Consultant, Riley & Associates3 Key Points
I am attaching the document that I sent last week with some of the ideas/thoughts that typically arise from my discussions with students, educators and industry. I have organized these around the major "threads" for this Stream.
Stream leader
Dr Law Song Seng, Senior Advisor, ITE Education Services Private Limited (ITEES), SingaporeFocus: Making vocational training relevant, responsive, accountable and holistic
In Plenary Session 4, Dr Law Song Seng shared the Singapore Story in building a system of vocational and technical education (VTE) for who are less academically-inclined. More “experiential learners” than “academic achievers”, these students respond to and blossom more easily in a practical and skills-based “hands-on” learning environment.
What we have seen is a breakthrough in vocational training. With its unique brand of a “hands-on, minds-on and hearts-on” holistic education, the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) in Singapore is well-recognised for developing highly employable graduates who are ready for the global economy. The underlying significance of the transformation is that the public image of ITE has changed!
For its innovations and achievements in transforming VTE in Singapore, ITE was the winner of the Global IBM-Harvard Innovations Award in Transforming Government in 2007. In this session, you will be invited to view a video which was especially commissioned as part of ITE’s commitment to share with others in the international community. The people featured in this 14-minute video include a former Minister of Education, Dr Law and a few ITE staff and students sharing Singapore’s success story. Entitled “Experiential Learners Change a Nation” and was shown on the Public Broadcasting Station (PBS) in the United
States, it tells a compelling story of Singapore’s transformation in vocational and technical education.